76 Years Ago Today: “What to do with old PM’s” and “N.Y. Now Has 8668 Horses…”

PM, October 19, 1940 (Unidentified photographer)

“What to do with old PM’s.”
“N.Y. Now Has 8,668 Hoses and Only 18 Blacksmiths
Because a horse walks around on his toenails he needs a new set of shoes every month. His toenails grow and the old shoes won’t fit… horses are disappearing from our town at a rate of 270 a year. In 1924 there were 50,000 of them. The Health Department’s 1939 census turned up only 8,6668.
Laundries, peddlers and milkmen still use horses…
There are some figures to show they object to taxicabs. The ASPCA says most runaways of recent years have been caused by taxicabs cutting in front of the horses.
[Taxicabs drove recklessly and dangerously 76 years ago, and they still do today, some things don’t change…]
…partners in a [Black]smith shop at 301 Spring St. can remember when there ‘was a blacksmith shop on every block from 14th St. to South Ferry’…”
PM, October 19, 1940, p. 56